Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador visited the site of the mining disaster on Wednesday, where rescuers are still trying to save ten miners stranded underground.
• Read also: Minors stranded in Mexico: “decisive day” for relief
“I’ll see how the rescue goes. I will realize the situation, “said the president before going to the scene where he made no statement to the press.
Nearly 400 rescuers are trying to save ten miners who were victims of the collapse and flooding of three coal shafts 60 meters deep in the state of Coahuila (northeast) at midday on Wednesday.
The president had spoken on Saturday of a “decisive” day for rescue operations: “We will know if there is the possibility that divers can enter (into the mine) without risk”.
Divers were unable to enter on Saturday, however, as the water level (34 meters flood) had only dropped by 9.5 meters.
The divers “said they did not know when” they could go down, told AFP on the spot Alicia Huerta, sister-in-law of one of the ten miners underground.
The emergency services use about twenty pumps. However, experts fear new infiltration from a neighboring mine.
Saturday evening, relatives participated in a mass near the improvised camp where they have been meeting since Wednesday, away from the relief area cordoned off by the authorities.
Sole producer of Mexican coal, the state of Coahuila is used to mining tragedies. In June 2021, seven workers died after an underground collapse.
On February 19, 2006, 65 miners died when an underground gas pocket exploded at Pasta de Conchos, a mine controlled by conglomerate Grupo México.
Sixteen years later, 63 of the 65 bodies are still lying at the bottom of the mine.
Families have been “demanding measures” against accidents for 16 years “and their appeals have not been heard”, lamented the Society of Jesus, which affirms that the Jesuits accompany relatives in their request for justice before the authorities. international.
In October 2010 in Chile, 33 workers were able to get out of a copper mine, almost 700 meters deep, in the Atacama desert after 69 days underground and a landslide.